Microbial oxidation technologies for landfill gas emissions mitigation in landfill aftercare: abatement of methane and trace components in biofiltration prototypes in mediterranean regions.

Landfills are listed as the second antropogenic source of atmospheric methane (CH4) and contributes significantly to climate change. To reduce surface emissions from landfills have been developed biocover or biofilter to enhance biologically methane oxidation by methanotrophic bacteria. The RE Mida project is a demonstrative project in the frame of Climate Change Mitigation co-finance by LIFE-Programme. Within the project have been designed and constructed two biofiltration systems: a biofilter, located at Podere il Pero landfill in province of Arezzo, and 7 passive biowindows, located at Le Fornaci landfill in province of Siena. The aim of this paper is to show the result of the monitoring campaigns made to evaluate the performance and the CH4 oxidation efficiency of the prototypes. For the biofilter the results show an average oxidation efficiency among 60-70%. Despite the biowindows show an oxidation efficiency depending on the inlet methane concentration, but has been achieved oxidation efficiencies of 100%. The results of the monitoring NMVOC and odorous emissions show a significant reduction of the pollutant inlet the biofiltration prototypes.